Pitch-perfect abbey choir leads a moving memorial
It was the choir’s first day back after the summer vacation and choirmaster Huw Williams expected they’d be a few short.
There were also six new boys in Bath Abbey’s choir on Sunday so tunefulness was likely to be an issue.
He needn’t have worried. For the Queen’s memorial service on Sunday at 3.30pm the huge swell of the choir’s sound filled the cavernous space of the abbey church, combining the emotion of the occasion with the abbey at its best.
One choirboy’s family was sitting directly behind the mayor’s pew, including parents, grandparents and younger sister.
“Make sure you get the third boy from the left,” his grandmother instructed the Bath Chronicle’s photographer.
Every member of the choir was present – well, in a lifetime you don’t get to sing at that many memorial services for your monarch – and they were perfectly in tune, even the six beginners.
Unusually the main doors of the abbey were opened and the mayor Rob Appleyard with the mayoress, council chair Shaun Stephensonmcgall and other dignitaries from B&NES Council processed to the front row of the nave.
The service was moving. All the personal feelings that accompany the words of Abide With Me seemed to be doubled by the extraordinary tone of Huw Williams’ choir and the richness of Bath Abbey’s organ.
Something about the acoustics of
the abbey caught up the whole congregation and brought tears to people’s eyes.
After the prayers for the country and the new King, the service ended with The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended. Another weepy one, and naturally the national anthem, the first time in their lifetime that many had sung it in that form.
Standing under the majesty of Bath Abbey’s organ with the power of that phenomenal instrument and the richness of Huw Williams’ extraordinary choir flowing all around, the roof of Bath Abbey might have lifted up a quarter of an inch above its rafters as the congregation sang God Save the King for Bath and for the nation.